Bile rises in my throat. My mind flashes back to the Australian finalist sitting beside me during Dr. Takumi’s welcome speech. And I can’t breathe.
“How?” Leo whispers.
“We were doing the submersible drills. Our team was last in the diving pool today,” Dev says shakily. “Everything was going fine, and then when it was Callum’s turn . . . It was the craziest thing.”
“What happened?”
“He turned on the thrust-booster, just like he was supposed to—but then he suddenly climbed out of the submersible while everything was still running. And he . . . he swam right under the propellers.” Dev squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head, as if to rid himself of the image. “Lieutenant Barnes was screaming at him to stop, he jumped in the water after him, but it was too late. The submersible cut him up in seconds.”
I stare at Dev, struggling to comprehend the gruesome story.
“Why—why would he do that?”
“That’s what makes no sense,” Ana wails. “He was happy; he was doing so well here, and he was excited about the mission. But then today, from the start, something was different about him. It was almost like he was . . .” She shrugs helplessly, and Dev finishes her sentence.
“Possessed.”
My heart hammers in my chest. I turn to Leo, and I can see in his eyes that he knows what I’m thinking. The RRB.
Footsteps come thundering toward us, and we step back as Dr. Takumi and General Sokolov enter the hall, their faces grave.
“Everyone into the library,” Dr. Takumi directs us, and we fall into step, shuffling numbly behind our leaders. Once we’re all seated around the long reading tables, Dr. Takumi clears his throat, looking out at the sea of stunned faces.
“Finalists, I know you’ve been through a terrible shock. The general and I, Lieutenant Barnes, and all of the staff here at ISTC are devastated by what happened to Callum Turner today. For his teammates who were on the scene, we know how traumatizing it must’ve been to witness. But it’s important for you to understand that this was an isolated incident.” He pauses. “It appears Callum Turner had an undiagnosed psychiatric condition that our initial vetting failed to pick up on—which explains his fatal behavior today.”
What?
“The robots first reported something amiss when monitoring his physical reactions and brain waves during the virtual reality simulation,” General Sokolov speaks up. “We scheduled a psychiatric evaluation for him for tomorrow, but” —she hangs her head—“we were too late.”
I glance around me, wondering if my fellow finalists are buying this convenient story. But I can already see it on most of their faces: acceptance. I know how easy it is to cling to the first answer you’re given in the haze of shock, but I shake my head in frustration, convinced Dr. Takumi and the general are manipulating us into believing what they want.
“I just got off the phone with one of Houston’s leading psychiatrists, who confirmed that in a patient such as Callum, stress can trigger symptoms and breakdowns like what occurred in the diving pool,” Dr. Takumi continues. “We deeply regret exposing Callum to an environment he wasn’t equipped to handle. We also regret the impact this is having on you, his teammates and cofinalists.”
I raise my hand. “What was his condition, exactly?”
“I’m afraid the specific details must remain confidential, out of respect to Callum’s family,” Dr. Takumi says smoothly.
Convenient once again. I take a breath, daring myself to ask the next question.
“And are you sure it’s not the RRB? What if this was a reaction to that, like what happened to Suki?”
Every face in the room turns in my direction, and I can feel Leo tensing up beside me. When Dr. Takumi finally answers, his voice is controlled and calm—but I can see the threat in his eyes as he looks at me.
“I think we made it clear this has nothing to do with the RRB. As the general said, Cyb and Dot reported irregular brain wave activity in Callum before he received his first dose of the vaccine. Again, this was an isolated incident.”
He turns his sharp gaze away from me, toward the rest of the watching crowd.
“We will all mourn Callum, and we won’t forget him. But know this: in every landmark achievement in the history of mankind, there have been unfortunate casualties along the way. It’s as my predecessors at NASA always said: risk is the price of progress.” He lets the words linger before continuing, “We’ll leave you in the capable hands of your team leaders for the rest of the day. Take this time to comfort yourselves and your teammates. We’ll be back to our mission in the morning.”
His speech might have worked on the others, but my suspicion is only growing. I have to get my hands on the RRB—I have to get the answers we all need.
As soon as everyone is out of their seats, I scan the faces around me, looking for the person who can give me at least one clue. Jian Soo is standing near the computers with the French finalist, Henri, and I elbow my way toward them.
“Jian,” I murmur. “I know Callum was your teammate, and I’m so sorry. This is—this is really weird timing, I know, but I have to ask you something. Last night, when Suki was having her—her reaction to the RRB, she kept repeating something in Mandarin.”
He raises an eyebrow, and nods at me to continue.
“It sounded like tā hái huózhe. Is that—is that a real phrase?”
Jian lets out a sharp exhale.
“Are you sure that’s what she said?”
“I couldn’t get it out of my mind. So, yes.”
Jian stares at me.
“She was saying, ‘It’s alive.’”
As if I needed more proof of Dr. Takumi’s priorities, that night we’re escorted to the medical office for the RRB shots as usual. You would think that today, of all days, he would let us forgo the injections, but even the loss of a finalist isn’t enough for him to pause our strict schedule. There is only one benefit of going back and risking another dose: it gives me an opportunity.
“Remember how I asked you to trust me?” I whisper to Leo, pulling him aside on our way there. “I’m going to do something, and I need just a tiny bit of your help. It’s for Callum and Suki.”
“What is it?” He gives me a wary look. “Don’t forget that I also asked you not to get us in trouble.”
“This is nothing,” I assure him, though I have a feeling he might disagree. “So as soon as I get in the chair, but before the nurse takes out the needle, I need you to just . . . cause a distraction. Something that’ll make her turn away from me and keep the focus on you for the quick minute it’ll take me to grab a vial. Once I turn around and give you the signal, you can go back to normal. Cool?”
“Um. What kind of distraction? And you do know there are security cameras in the building, right?”
“Yes, but even if there’s a camera right there in the medical office, which I doubt, I’ll be so quick that you wouldn’t see anything. And the distraction can be anything—I don’t know, pretend to trip and twist your ankle or something.” I shrug. “Don’t worry about having an audience, either. We can be near the end of the line, so most of the others will be in the cafeteria by the time I go up.”
Leo groans. “I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?”
“Nope. And compared to other plans I’ve come up with, this one is pretty tame.”
“Fine.” He sighs, and I give his arm a grateful squeeze.
“Thank you. I know you won’t regret it.”
We join the rest of our teammates and cofinalists outside the medical office, waiting silently as the line trickles down to the last few. As each finalist goes up, wincing at the prick of the needle, my palms sweat with the realization that any one of us could be the next Suki—the next Callum. And then it’s my turn.
I give Leo an encouraging nod before I step forward, into the office. One . . . two . . . The nurse motions me toward the chair and I take my seat, swiveling it just slightly so that I am within arm’
s length of the wall of vials. Three.
The sound of coughing comes right on cue, weak at first, and then growing louder, more urgent. I try not to smile.
The nurse pauses in front of her instruments as the coughing escalates, and Leo yells in a choked voice, “Water!”
“One second,” she tells me, before hurrying to tend to him. And then, adrenaline surging, I turn in my seat to face the vials. The glowing pale liquid beckons me, and in one quick motion, I snatch a vial from the back of the shelf, stuffing it in the zippered pocket of my hoodie. I release my breath and turn back to face Leo, who is getting thumped between the shoulder blades by the nurse. He meets my eyes, and I scratch my ear, giving him our signal.
“That’s better!” Leo blurts out, pretending to take a gulp of air. “Something must have gone down the wrong pipe, but I can breathe now.”
And as the nurse returns to me, I give Leo a grateful smile, mouthing the words thank you.
Back in my dorm for the first time since morning, I stare at Suki’s now-empty side of the room. The bed is stripped, her desk bare, our shared closet purged of her clothes and shoes. Even the scent in the room is different and chemical-tinged, as though someone scrubbed the place clean while trying to remove every trace of her. It’s like she was never here at all.
“But I won’t forget you, Suki,” I whisper to the empty bed. “I promise I’ll find out what happened—to you and Callum.”
It hits me with a jolt that whoever came in to clear out her things might have taken the opportunity to snoop through mine, and I race over to the closet, grabbing my backpack. My fingers tremble as I unzip the hidden compartment. Please, please, please still be there . . .
I let out a long exhale at the sight of the flash drive with my hacking software, still nestled safely in the zippered compartment. I run my fingers over the drive in relief before setting it aside and rifling through the bag until I find just what I need.
Some girls stock their carry-ons with extra SPF or clothes for a rainy day. I, on the other hand, am the type to pack a portable electron microscope whenever I travel. It may sound weird, but you just never know what you’ll find when you leave home. A foreign insect or an unusual pebble in the streets of somewhere new becomes a form of art when placed under a microscopic lens. And I’m about to find out just what kind of art is hiding in this radiation-resistant bacteria.
I pull out the microscope and a miniature bottled water from my backpack, bringing them both to my desk. My eyes flash to the door, double-checking that it’s firmly shut, before I pour a drop of water onto the microscope slide. My heartbeat quickening, I retrieve the RRB vial from my pocket and unscrew the top, revealing the icy-blue, viscous serum within. I empty a bit of the serum onto the slide with the drop of water, place the glass coverslip over it—and then I peer into the lens.
Impossible. I shake my head at the sight before me, blinking rapidly to try to clear my vision. Bacteria cells are prokaryotes—they’re not supposed to have a nucleus. And yet . . .
I take a breath, wait for the thudding in my chest to slow, and then return my eyes to the lens, expecting something different this time. But still I find three unmistakable nuclei . . . where there should be none.
The RRB is a literal exception to every rule of Earth’s bacteria.
Thirteen
LEO
AT BREAKFAST, NAOMI SLIPS A PIECE OF PAPER INTO MY HAND under the table. My stomach jumps as her fingers brush mine, and I spend the rest of the meal fixated on the message in my grasp, wondering what it says. As soon as we’re excused from the cafeteria and my teammates push back from the table, I unfold the paper and read her words, scrawled in blue ink.
Found something. Plan to meet me on the Telescope Tower after dinner. Make sure you’re alone.
I draw in my breath. How in the world am I supposed to wait until evening to find out her news?
It takes every ounce of my focus to stay present during training as Lark shuttles us between the Mission Floor, the Altitude Chamber, and the VR lab. My mind is already up on the tower with Naomi. When we finally make it to dinner, she leans in to murmur in my ear, “You go first. I’ll be a few steps behind you.”
I nod, glancing up at the clock. Only twenty minutes to go. But then my eyes catch on something else: Beckett, watching the two of us from across the table. I give Naomi a warning look before turning away.
I take the spiral stairs up to the tower two at a time, and as the wind sweeps against my neck, I realize how much I’ve missed the outdoors. Back in Rome, I tried to spend as little time as possible inside, in the wreckage of our pensione. As much as I hated the sea that stole my family from me, somehow looking at the sky and the stars comforted me.
I make my way to the telescope now, peering through it until I find the constellation I’m looking for—the one that always reminds me of my parents and sister: Orion’s Belt, with its three blinking stars. Maybe they’re out there, watching over me.
I take a deep breath and shift the telescope to a different angle—toward Europa. I’ve just caught the colorful sphere of Jupiter and the grayish speck of its moon behind it when I hear the sound of footsteps.
“Hi,” Naomi says behind me. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“Of course.” I turn away from the telescope, noticing how her face glows in the moonlight. A flush creeps up her cheeks, and for a moment we just stand there, our eyes locked. And then she looks away, taking a breath before launching into what she has to say.
“I looked at the RRB. And, Leo—it had three nuclei.”
At my blank look, she continues, “It’s a law of science that bacteria on Earth, like all prokaryote organisms, does not contain a nucleus. Just like it’s a law of human physiology that we don’t have, for example, fins. So just as we wouldn’t be considered human if we had fins, the fact that the radiation-resistant bacteria has three nuclei theoretically means . . .”
“It’s not from Earth?” I finish her sentence, the words sounding implausible as they come out of my mouth.
“Exactly.”
I shake my head, trying to clear the illusion from my mind. One of us here needs to remain levelheaded.
“Could there be an exception to that nucleus rule?” I ask.
“There’s only ever been one possible exception, and it’s highly contested by scientists anyway. But even that exception, in the Planctomycetes, has just one nucleus-like structure. The idea of a bacteria species from Earth with three nuclei is an impossibility. And there’s more.” Naomi starts pacing the short width of the tower, as if her body can’t keep still under the magnitude of her discovery. “Jian translated the phrase Suki kept repeating that night—tā hái huózhe. He said it means ‘It’s alive.’” She looks at me with wild eyes, and I can’t tell whether she’s afraid or excited—or both. “Don’t you see the connection?”
“Um . . .”
“I think when she went into her altered state after the second dose, her body could somehow feel what was in the RRB—that it comes from something living.” Naomi’s voice drops to a whisper. “Something like . . . the extraterrestrials of Europa.”
My eyebrows shoot up. Is this her trying to be funny? Or—
“And I think Callum had the same reaction before the submersible accident,” she continues. “That’s why he acted so out of character, why he seemed—according to his teammates—possessed.”
“Extraterrestrials? As in, little green men?”
She stops pacing, narrowing her eyes at me.
“I never bought that description of them, but yeah—intelligent life. And by the way, I’m hardly the first person to suspect ETs on Europa. I’m guessing you haven’t been on the Space Conspirator?”
I shake my head.
“It’s this amazing website my brother and I have been following for years, that uses cutting-edge science to debunk myths and prove new theories,” she explains. “And for months now they’ve been posting detailed reasoning for why extraterrestrial life i
s not just possible, but theoretically has to exist on Europa, due to its high-energy particle environment and tidally heated subsurface ocean. The space agencies refuse to take the Conspirator seriously or address the claims head-on, but if there’s one thing I believe in, it’s science—and the Conspirator is right. The chemicals and particles that exist on Europa are known to create life.”
She finally pauses to take a breath. “So that means the ISTC isn’t just planning to send us to another part of the universe—they’re sending us into the unknown. A world where we’re not the first.”
I stare at her. Now I understand why she’s been wary of the mission from the beginning.
“You really believe in this stuff?”
“I do. Now more than ever. And I’m telling you all this because I’m going to prove it . . . and there might come another time, like last night, where I need an accomplice.”
“You better tell me what you’re planning, then.”
Even though I’m nearly certain she’s chasing something that doesn’t exist, I can’t deny the rush of satisfaction I feel that she’s chosen me to confide in. Maybe I’m not so alone in the feelings I’m starting to have.
“What I need to do is find biosignatures,” Naomi says. At another quizzical look from me, she rolls her eyes. “Did you pay any attention in science class, or were you too busy swimming?”
“Too busy swimming,” I affirm. We share a grin before she continues.
“Biosignatures are substances like elements, molecules, isotopes, and so on that provide tangible evidence of life. If I could find some way to get into the data from the Europa flyby mission, that’s the first thing I would look for.”
“But wouldn’t the whole world know about it, if there were these so-called biosignatures?” I ask.
“Only if the powers that be decided to share the information with the world. And why would they? It would only jeopardize our mission. Besides, who knows if anyone who had access to the data was even looking for biosignatures?”
Naomi suddenly stops in place, her posture straight as an arrow. I can practically see the light bulb going off in her mind.